Nomads Auckland on the road with Stray Travel – part 2
Stray Backpacker Bus | Auckland to Christchurch
Day 2 Hahei to Raglan
Read Nomads Auckland on the road with Stray Travel – part 1
The group again started early with all of us getting on the Stray backpacker bus by 8am before heading off to our next over night location in Raglan. This beach side town is located on the far western coast of New Zealand and is reknowned for its surf. Many say Raglan is the best place to learn to surf in the whole of New Zealand. Our driver announced on this day that he had only driven one other trip for Stray the week before (He used to drive for Adventure Tours in Australia). He only announced this after doing a 93 point turn on a small country road after missing the turn off.
Now one thing I had learnt from speaking to other people who have travelled with Stray is that each backpacker bus driver has a nick name based on something they have done whilst working for Stray Travel (normally something they’ve done on their training trip). I was shocked to discover than our driver ‘Nick’ had not been given a nick name as of yet. The group then un-officially nicknamed him ‘Austin’ as in ‘Austin Powers’ due to that scene in the movie where ‘Austin Powers’ does a 93 point turn in an airport buggy and gets stuck in an underground tunnel.
Fortunately this was the only missed turn on the way to our second stop ‘Raglan’. Raglan is an area containing a small local village and a famous New Zealand surf beach. Here we headed to our place of accomodation which was the Karioi Backpackers Retreat. This little place is nestled into the hillside of Raglan’s coast in amongst native bush. The Karioi Backpackers Retreat is well known in surfing circles as it provides a surf school for different experienced groups and also surf board hire down on the beach at their Raglan Surf School.
I had only surfed once before, in Wales of all places, but for some reason decided to get involved in the action. I hired out a board and headed out into the water with our driver ‘Nick’ aka ‘Austin’ who earlier that day had run through the technique with me. I believe we were both surprised when after hitting my first wave I managed to stand up on the board and cruise into the shallows. After that I was hooked. A group of us stayed out on the water for 3 hours before heading back to the retreat.
That night most of the group prepared their own food as where we were staying was pretty remote. As the night rolled on and we all had more and more to drink a large group of us wandered down to a view point we had been told about earlier in the day. On travelling to this view point we saw loads of glowworms on the sloping bank running adjacent to the road.
When we reached the view point which was at the top of a steep slope we were greeted by a blanket of stars. Being from the Northern Hemisphere I was shocked to find out that there were that many stars and the milky way does actually exist. I always thought it was a chocolate bar. After spending quite some time up at the view I retired back to my sleeping quarters at Karioi Backpackers Retreat, looking forward to what’s in store for us tomorrow on the Stray Backpacker Bus.
Adam
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